Effective Innovation for Competitive Advantage within a Manufacturing SME

This Management Project focuses on the topic of Effective innovation for competitive advantage within a manufacturing SME. Set against the practices of a specific study organisation, it has investigated methods by which the innovative practices in a manufacturing Small/Medium sized Enterprise can be audited and measured in order to ascertain their effectiveness. Having established the innovative practices that take place it identifies a list of recommendations and implications that aim to assist the organisation in evolving and improving innovative practices. An Innovation Audit was carried out on the study organisation in order to assess innovation effectiveness. Phase 1 set a questionnaire to all members of the study organisation, gathering quantitative data and knowledge to set a baseline of innovative practices that take place. Phase 2 of the research exercise took that baseline of data as a foundation of questioning to gather qualitative data that expanded on the knowledge on innovative practice, identifying in what way innovation could be improved to enhance organisational competitive advantage in the future. The research exercise highlighted many opportunities for improving innovative practice within the organisation, centred around New Product Development activities, primarily focussed on five central themes identified during the study: Learning, Organisation, Linkages, Strategy and Process. From the academic perspective, this study offers a practical application of the learning put forwards from numerous bodies of work that exist in this sphere of research, addressing the subject of innovation in a commercial setting to gain competitive advantage. The process used here has required the application of appropriate views and frameworks from various sources within this field. No single piece of learning has fully addressed the circumstances found in this practical study, resulting in the realisation that a mixed and wide ranging consideration of academic work is necessary in order to adequately assess real situations found in industry